Friday, 2 November 2007

We take the acquisition of music a little too much for granted nowadays, don't we? A download is but a mouse-click away; itunes can call on a library of millions of songs (but good luck finding exactly what you want!) and every magazine or newspaper you buy seems to disgorge at least 1 free covermounted CD.

So it's always nice to look back at a time when the height of musical technology was to be presented with a FREE RECORD, taped to the front of a magazine! Imagine that! Well, it wasn't without it's drawbacks- the record was actually a flexidisc, which meant sometimes it was creased, it wouldn't play properly, the needle on your record player would gouge holes in the flexi...... Welcome to the world of Flexipop Magazine. At the start of the 80's however, this free music/added bonus of a magazine concept was very funky indeed, and my heart would beat just a little faster when I arrived at the newsagents to see a pile of the magazines, with their flexis proudly attached to the cover: a yellow John Foxx one, The Cure (green) OMD (blue, with Nash The Slash as well)........ For those of you who remember, and perhaps those of you who are curious, there's a full list here. Amongst all of these other bands sat the subject of today's post: Haircut 100 (March 1982, Green) "Nobody's Fool" should be instantly recognisable to anyone with any knowledge of the band: it was a single after all, reaching number 9 in the charts later that year.

What's not so readily known is that this version of the song is actually solely written and performed by Haircut 100's driving force, singer-songwriter Nick Heyward. The band themselves seemed to be falling apart, due to the pressures of their new-found fame, and this song was earmarked as Nick's first solo single. In fact, it finally emerged as the last Haircut 100 single to feature Nick (the band carried on for a year or so without him, to no discernible success whatsoever). whether the band actually featured on the final single, or whether they were there merely in name, i don't really know. However, having had at least some knowledge of what it's like when bands start the process of falling apart, I can imagine the rancour and bitterness this song must have caused amongst his bandmates when they realised nick was setting out on his own and leaving them behind.

This version is fairly simplistic (as one might expect from a solo demo) but with all the added charm that demos have: yes, the vocals are shaky, the production is shonky...but there's a joyous sense of propulsion to the song: it drives along, whooping and crashing, with Nicks vocals powering along over the top. And there's one more thing that makes this copy special: it's a hard vinyl test pressing. Flexipop records were, obviously Flexis; but in the interests of promotion, the magazine had a limited number of hard vinyl copies made up of each one. These are incredibly rare: the Cure one goes for several hundred pounds, and there's an article on Goth in this month's Record Collector magazine which notes that the Bauhaus hard vinyl pressing goes for around £250! If anyone has the magazine to hand, have a little look at the handwriting on the Bauhaus label: exactly the same as on the record above- obviously it was one person's job to sit in the Flexipop offices and write out all the labels (in the same Black felt tip, too!) Well, though it's nice to know that my record is only one of 50 copies, and it's nice to be able to hear the song in some semblance of decent quality, I doubt that it's worth as much as the other Flexipop rarities. No matter, I love it just as much, regardless.

6 comments:

Fascinating. Did I tell you that I had a Squeeze one-sided green vinyl flexi that came with 'Smash Hits' of the song 'Wrong Way'? They claimed it was available 'nowhere else on Earth' but it had already been released on a compilation, as they shamefacedly had to admit afterwards...Wonder what that would have been worth now?

gawd bless em. pelican west stilllives vaguely near the front of my record pile and every now and again i tuck a jumper into my strides and long for a huge red semi acoustic...i dug that jam flexi out the other day and it should be pooping up on dusty7s soonx

Hey Ally, aren't flexis wonderful things? Their very infirmity and fragility only makes them more loveable :)Also, not sure why I haven't linked to Dusty Sevens on my blog yet, i've been a fan for ages....tell you what, I'll go do it now :)

Many years ago I saw someone on the internet had claimed as one of their favourite albums of-all-time the Cd (LP?) bootleg of demos for "Paint and Paint" the 2nd Haircut LP, but the demos were done before Nick had left the band and I guess they were fantastic.

Who knows where this super rare item has ended up. I've never seen it anywhere--but I sure would like to.

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All mp3's are provided for evaluation purposes only, and will be online for a limited time. Most of the material featured here will be unavailable elsewhere, but please support the artists responsible by buying their music and supporting them in any way you can.If you are the composer or the copyright owner of a song featured here and would like me to remove the file, please let me know.All mp3's are ripped off the vinyl, and will be presented exactly as I hear them. they may hop, skip, jump or crackle, but I like'em that way :)Enjoy!Iainx